Both books in Hayden Thorne's best-selling gay YA romance series Desmond and Garrick in one box set!

Book 1: It’s 1815. Garrick Mortimer is a starving genius, who agrees to sign on as tutor to Desmond Hathaway, the youngest son of a vampire family living in Yorkshire. When Desmond’s older brother returns from Italy for a visit and brings with him a small group of talentless poets, life in Dryden Abbey turns upside-down, mainly when Desmond meets Leigh Blaise Sherbourne, a sullen vampire poet.

Book 2: As the poets continue their campaign of destruction in Dryden Abbey, Garrick struggles in the classroom, with distracted pupils eroding all of his hard work. And an unexpected love triangle further complicates things for Desmond. Through all these, Garrick and Desmond will realize that the chasm separating them as distinct species will forge a stronger bond of friendship than they expected.

EXCERPT FROM BOOK 1:

Desmond sat in the ruins and waited and felt himself slowly die of embarrassment because he could see Lavinia watching him from her bedroom window, laughing and pulling faces and even sketching him. Mr. Guiderius also frowned and turned all shades of red from his bedroom window as he gaped at the sorry scene. Meanwhile Melpomene Vasilakis sat amid the abbey’s scattered rubble, scribbling non-stop. She’d brought a few quill pens along with a little bottle of ink, all of which sat on a conveniently flat-surfaced stone beside her.

Every so often, she’d stop to share the lines she’d just written, which, because of the distance between them, she was obliged to read in a loud voice, which Desmond knew could be heard by all of Yorkshire, completing his shame.

“Trapped, so trapped, I feel inside / With this cursed thing I call the mind --” Desmond noted she pronounced cursed as ‘cursed’ with two syllables. “It haunts and rules my very soul / Some peace, though little, I cannot find ...”

Desmond swallowed, nodding. “That’s -- quite good, Mrs. Filbert,” he said. “Oh, begging your pardon -- Melpomene, ma’am.” He thought he saw Mr. Guiderius shudder violently. For all the gentleman’s expressions of outrage and horror, however, it appeared as though Mr. Guiderius couldn’t pull himself away from the grisly spectacle -- drawn to it, Desmond realized, the same way that a really horrific carriage accident would draw morbidly curious onlookers. So the family magician stood at his bedroom window, gaping and helpless.

“Why, thank you!” Melpomene said, grinning. Then, as though catching herself doing something unfashionable or illegal, she quickly wiped the smile off her face and sighed, her expression shifting with amazing speed from pleasure to unbearable distress. Her posture, just a moment ago straight and alert, suddenly drooped till she looked like a wilting flower amid the wreckage of a long-vanished abbey. “I strive, as you know, to do my best to capture the blackest and profoundest emotions that a human heart is capable of. I’m obliged to you, young Ganymede, for appreciating my efforts.”

“My pleasure, I’m sure,” Desmond grumbled, drumming his fingers against his leg. How much longer did he have to put up with such a humiliating moment? He exhaled loudly. At the very least, he thought, his parents weren’t around to witness his tragic fall.

“Why, Desmond! Are you helping dear Mrs. Filbert with her artistry, my dear?”

Desmond’s heart dropped. “Oh, damn.” Withering, he glanced around and found his parents, along with some mortal visitor, whom Desmond suspected was hired to do more damage to Dryden Abbey’s grounds, standing amid the ruins.

“Where did you come from?” he demanded, his voice coming out in a high-pitched whine.

“Why, we’re giving Mr. Smedley a brief tour of the grounds,” his mother said with a bright grin.

Desmond blinked. The itch on his backside returned, and it damned near killed him not to break his pose despite his ever-spiraling mortification. It was all he could do to shift a little, but it did nothing to ease his ordeal. “Whatever on earth for, Mama?” he asked, frowning. “We’ve no more walls for him to tear down!”

“A graveyard, Desmond,” his father said with a look of pleasure that equally matched his wife’s. “Your mother and I have decided to plant a graveyard in the eastern side of the grounds. Mr. Smedley’s been kind enough to go over the possibilities and some of the problems of strewing the ground with gravestones.